Great Board Games for the Holiday Season

From the Morning News - the best games of 2008.

I like the first one for Josh's family as well as the second one.

NYC Beekeeper Article

An interesting piece on keeping bees in NYC but the real gem is about 2/3rds of the way down where CCD is discussed. I'm still hoping to have bees in my Brownsburg backyard by next summer.

http://www.drawger.com/zinasaunders/index.php?section=comments&article_id=6518

Operating Environments - Spatially Defined

oblong industries is very close to making the UI in Minority Report a reality. Although Jeff Han demonstated a similar device at TED back in 2006, this one is a bit more mature, and a bit scary to some degree. Take a look:

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

The ABC3D Book

The video pretty much says all that needs to be said.

In a nutshell

Yep; this is pretty much me. From this article in The New Yorker, November 14, 2008.

The Big Picture

Above image, copyright 2008 Keith Vanderlinde/National Science Foundation

One of my favorite RSS reads is 'The Big Picture', a photojournalistic view of current events, put together by Alan Taylor, a website developer for the Boston Globe. Many times I cannot stand to look at the images; other times, like today, I am simply amazed by the beauty of nature. Take a look and see.

Final Electoral Vote Tally

Looks like one electoral vote for each day of the year went to President-Elect Obama. 

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/obama-wins-omaha-ne-electoral-vote.html

Sound advice for President-Elect Obama

Alice Walker's open letter to the next President of the United States.

Good advice, indeed.

Wave Field Installation by Maya Lin

The NY Times featured the architect, artist, and landscape artist Maya Lin in this weekend's paper; here's a link to a video on their website where Lin shares her thoughts on a recently completed series of landscape items, entitled 'Wave Field'. (To my family in Chelsea, the first in the series is at UM's School of Engineering.)

Ms. Lin is mostly known for her Vietnam Veteran Memorial in Washington D.C., a commission she was based on design she submitted as an undergraduate at Yale. In the article, she tells us she has attempted to shrug off the mantle of 'architect' and this piece introduces us to a far wider range of work.

See it here.

Say What You Will

But I belive in him and love the way he ran his campaign. If you're having trouble getting excited, this should do the trick.

Nels Ackerson for Congress

It's rare I tell someone what I think they should do. I am a strong propoenent of free choice - in all things - and while I enjoy engaging in conversation with repsect to religion and politics, and have ridiculously strong views of each, it's very uncommon for me to tell someone what they should believe or for whom they should vote.

So, that said, I implore those of you who live in Indiana's 4th Congressional district to vote for Nels Ackerson. There are many ways to describe Nels, his political views, and his agenda - all of which I believe in strongly. Let me say that Nels is the gentleman politician Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he discussed the model state representative. Nels deserves our vote and Indiana's 4th deserves someone who will voice the constituent's concerns as Nels will.

If you've not made up your mind, please vote for Nels. A vote for Nels is a vote for a better Indiana. 

And, if you're curious, my ticket looked like this today: Obama-Biden (D); Daniels (IN Gov, R); Nels Ackerson (IN 4th- D). 

Funniest thing I've seen this election cycle

Two teenagers, in my neighborhood, walking home from the bus stop. One faked spitting on our Obama yard sign (funny thing is, he failed to spit on the sign next to it advocating Nels Ackerson for Congress) and another had a "Nobama '08" t-shirt on.

At least they're involved in the process! (But, thankfully, not old enough to vote.)

Electoral Vote Prediction

I've been predicting my own electoral vote map for the past month or so; now that it's election eve I thought I'd share it with you.

I long thought 338 would be a huge, huge win for Obama and my call for NC to go to the Dems is what looks to be my biggest gamble. The only way I see McCain winning is to take FL-PA-OH-NC. On average, FL is +3%, PA is +7%, OH is +4%, (for Obama) and NC is a tie. 

My home state of IN, which is now -1%, would be the biggest switch state of them all. Bush had +21% in 2004 and +16% in 2000.

Hi-Tech Voting a Thing of the Past?

Touchscreen voting has been run through the wringer over the past 8 years of election cycles and it's not getting any better. For people who aren't techies at heart or at work, it must be frustrating to find 

From this morning's NY Times:

In states with early voting, there have been scattered reports of touch-screen machine malfunctions, ballot misprints causing scanners to jam and vote-flipping, in which the vote cast for one candidate is recorded for another.

Florida has switched to its third ballot system in the past three election cycles, and glitches associated with the transition have caused confusion at early voting sites, election officials said. The state went back to using scanned paper ballots this year after touch-screen machines in Sarasota County failed to record any choice for 18,000 voters in a fiercely contested House race in 2006.

Voters in Colorado, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia have reported using touch-screen machines that at least initially registered their choice for the wrong candidate or party.

"I pushed the Democrat ticket, and it jumped to the Republican ticket for president of the United States," said Calvin Thomas, 81, an Obama supporter who tried to vote early in Ripley, W.Va. "I’m a registered Republican, and I’ve voted in every presidential election since 1948. I don’t like seeing my vote do something I didn’t tell it to do. I take that real serious."

Sunday Morning Politics

As our group will attend the John McLaren roundtable at this year's Spirit and Place Festival I was given the luxurious chance to watch the Sunday morning pundits. Of particular interest to me were the following:

CBS Sunday Morning's piece on what it means to be a patriot. Needless to say, my views were more blue than red but I found it riveting that more Americans found it patriotic to vote (95%) than they did to serve in the military (87%). (It's toward the bottom of the article, video will be available later in the week.)

Over on FOX News Sunday (yes, normally FOX is on purely for NFC Football and The Simpsons) David Plouffe, Obama's Campaign Manager, made a rare TV appearance and made me want to be a better man. Of interest were Plouffe's comments regarding the get out the vote efforts currently underway and the rise of first time and African-American voters in this election. He made me proud in his comments regarding Indiana and how it remains in play just two days prior to the election. The best part of today's show was watching Karl Rove admit McCain's chances were 'steep' as a result of all polls showing him -5% to -9%. (Video will appear later in the day.)

As I've said before, this is my generation's Kennedy moment. I wonder how I'll feel on Wednesday.

One of my favorite sites during election season is electoral-vote.com. I'm hoping for 370 but think somewhere in the 320s is more likely. And, to scare me, look at the same data this day four years ago - remember how much of a mess that was? 

What's wrong with Higher Education, you ask?

From an anonymous liberal arts professor, tenured, who has decided to leave academia for good:

Higher education for too many undergraduates at too many liberal arts colleges has become a puffy sofa nestled with down pillows. For a few bucks and in a few hours, students can take a test and learn that they are language disabled, or mathematically disabled, or for a few bucks more, both. Students increasingly ask me during advising sessions if a class is tough or hard, or if the professor assigns a lot of reading, because they need to “lighten their load.” “I want to take a class with Professor So-And-So. I have a lot on my mind, and I don’t want to stress out.” “Don’t worry,” I say, “you won’t.”

The rest, here.

Courtesy of one of my favorite blogs, Marginal Revolution.